09.05.05 Heather and I have arrived! Finally! Although, couldn\'t get here without more animal mishaps - counted 30 bites on 1 arm, 19 on the other (after going 6 weeks with virtually none! lol). New Zealand is amazing. We arrived too late to do anything, but on the flight over and the journey to the hotel - the whole place is lovely and green. Really nice - saw the sky tower looming over the horizon as we arrived in the city which was pretty ace :) LOL I GOT HERE AND DEBS WAS ALL LUMPY AND BRUISED! IMMEDIATELY THROWED LOTS OF CREAMS AT HER. SILLY MARE. CANT WAIT TO GO OFF EXPLORING! (Heather!!) 10.05.05 Had a lie-in today - thoroughly deserved it!! When we got up (eventually) we went for a wander to orientate ourselves around the city. It's quite big (well, for NZ!) We ended up at the Art Gallery which was cool - portraits of Maori chiefs etc., and we decided that we would do the cultural thing and book tickets for the Shakespeare show at the theatre! So we organised that. Then we took a walk down to the harbour and discovered the 'Minus 5' bar that Heather had read about in the guide book - so we ventured in! You get 30mins for $25 - I think you would turn into one of the ice sculptures in there if you stayed any longer! But it was cool. In the evening, we hung out at our hostel bar. 11.05.05 Today we got up earlier as we had booked onto a free bus tour around the city with 'Stray' (one of the other bus companies). It was a really good day - the guide was really informative and we drove past the sky tower and over the bridge and up to Mount Eden - it was cool. When we got back we got ready for the theatre! We had some dinner there before the performance started. The play was 'The complete works of Shakespeare - abridged' and was pretty much 'all 37 plays in 90 mins'! (or a bit longer). It was really funny! Me and Heather were in stitches! 12.05.05 Today we managed to fit lots of different stuff in! We had to get to the Kiwi Experience office to organise our itinerary for the rest of the trip - which we did! We managed to find a pancake shop for breakfast on the same road too - bonus!! We then walked across to the museum. Managed to miss the Maori show, but the place itself was pretty impressive and we read up on all the Maori cultural stuff which was good. Then we got the city circle bus around to the Victorian Markets to have a quick mooch - got some trainers for all the walking (with my dodgy foot!). We had another ace evening planned after all the day's wandering about - a meal in the restaurant in the sky tower! It was called Orbit and was very posh! We fitted right in though of course! Food was very nice. We got entry included to the Observation Deck as well, so got some awesome views of the city at night. 13.05.05 Waiheke Island today. It was a ferry ride across from Auckland. Took a while, but the views coming in were really nice. We managed to walk to the 'town' centre - had a look around various art shops and galleries which was cool and walked down to a couple of the beaches. It was all very unspoilt and pretty. We had a snack in the 'Lazy Lounge' and met a well intentioned hippy type of older lady who seemed like she'd spent a bit too much time on the island!! Headed back for mainland as the sun was setting - very nice :) After the last 2 nights extravagant evenings, we decided to eat in tonight - Heather showed off her culinary skills by serving us pasta mush!! Hee hee.